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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be the most shocked about the women possibly involved in it all

265 replies

Whereareallthegoodpeople · 20/02/2026 22:49

With Epstein.

Men, i’m pretty much sick of at this point in my late 40’s, adore my Ddad and Dh is one of the good ones, but thinking back to being young and leering men and uncomfortable and scary situations.
But, rumours of women possibly being involved-obviously vile GM, but a supposed supermodel, JE’s personal assistants and women that seemed to work for him, reports of possibly owning adoption agencies etc. If all true, how on earth could women see children and young girls being abused and hurt and actively make that happen?? Where were all the safe people, why did no one notice and say or do anything?

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TellMeYourScores · 21/02/2026 11:00

Women can be just as depraved and evil as men. My first abuser was my biological mother. When I read my files as an adult I realised that my adoptive mother only agreed to adopt me to appease her husband. It is partly related to saving face and maybe the relief that they are being spared from it. A list of comments I have heard over the years.

Comments I heard as a teenager in the 1990’s.

It happens to girls like her, it is to be expected - mother of a girl who I wanted to be friends with (I was a late adoptee aged 11). The comments were heard about my 13 year old self.

How could you tell such lies about your family - female social worker. - aged 13.

She is enjoying the attention and notoriety it brings - female head of year - aged 13.

A list of things I must do “to be kind” written by female social worker when being returned to the abusers home include the types of clothing I would wear and cover myself up (I was 14 not buying my own clothes). My AM presented me with nightdresses I would not even wear as an adult (sliky slip dresses). I wanted to wear onesies and cover up my body. - A month after my 14th birthday.

I am disappointed she has not changed, she is promiscuous as ever - female social worker to police when I complained about my groomer (clearly an peadophile) abusive boyfriend. I was aged 16. This man was also the son of one of my teachers she introduced us and encouraged the relationship I was 15 to his 20. It was well known within the school and no adult ever tried to stop this relationship. They probably felt sorry for my maths teacher and listened to her lies. After all I was just a child from care, not worth anything unlike the lovely proper young girls who were not cared for children.

All documented in my social care files in black and white. All comments made by middle class white females.
As an adult I had the humiliation of hearing jokes about men being called Pedo-Pete for dating a women a few years younger e.g a 29 year old male with a 26 year old women. Jokes about Pedo’s were acceptable. All made by women.

Your vagina had scaring from you choosing to have sex so young - female practice nurse who had known me since childhood during my first smear test.

I actually asked my adoptive mother as an adult if she thought I was a liar, she said no you are very honest (I cannot lie it is a well known trait of mine). She admitted she knew the abuse was true however would still not leave him. I tried until I was 30 to save her, offered to find a home just for us. She stayed with him and I had to walk away for my mental health. Not long afterwards I spent time in a mental health ward.

Sadly a majority of middle class just ignore the abuse and I think are glad it is not them. I have also experienced as I said in a previous post that some women see it as drama - trauma porn. It only happens to certain types of girls.

I survived initially by building a persona of being a sex positive, nearly anything goes pretending that sexual intimacy is fun and being a bubbly, chatty outgoing girl/women inside I was a wreck. I struggle with touch (that is more than my sensory autism). The only man whose touch I can tolerate is my husband’s.

I often wonder if one day, I would have the courage to ask those types of women who belittled me what is like to enjoy sex and intimacy as I have never in reality experienced it.

To answer the question, some women choose to turn a blind eye, they are either depraved or just glad it is not them.

FreiasBathtub · 21/02/2026 11:25

Daygloboo · 21/02/2026 10:36

Im inclined to think that is an oversimplification. It seems to go against the idea of evolution to me. If, historically, we were never anything but brutish, we would have died out long ago. The capacity for cooperation, love, fairness etc is imo built in just as much as violence and self preservation..You dont go from hunter gatherer to farmer just by being constantly violent. Those people were.more sophisticated than you think. Read your history and prehistory.

No, but that is exactly what I'm saying. Morality, fairness, kindness- call it what you like, it's the product of self-interest and self-preservation. When it stops serving you, individually, and maybe your immediate community, it becomes redundant.

Have you read Hobbes? As this is his entire thesis. We all give up some of our individual autonomy to a higher authority (in his conception a king because he was writing at a time when the idea of kingship was highly contested) and that authority enforces law for the common good. And that's the basis of morality. It's how he explains the emergence of the polity - or, as he calls it, the commonwealth.

I have read my history, and my political philosophy as it happens, and a bit of anthropology too, so this isn't an entirely uninformed viewpoint Smile

crackdownmissus · 21/02/2026 11:27

When there’s massive sums of money and power involved, you’d be surprised at what women (and of course, anyone!) will do.

Jamesblonde2 · 21/02/2026 11:32

The statistics on men regarding violent crime, abuse/sexual abuse/of children etc clearly persuade me that they are the weird and perverted of the human race.

So when a woman is involved, yes, it is odd and to be questioned. Usually some sort of vulnerability/persuasion involved.

What are men and mothers of boys doing to address this, or is it just biology? Do they need forced medication?!

SomethingFun · 21/02/2026 11:41

So sorry for everyone who has experienced abuse.

Many women benefit from having a group of women who are there to be abused as it takes the expectation off them, providing self preservation in a male dominated society and also an opportunity to indulge sadistic and abusive tendencies in yourself. I also feel a lot of people, men and women are disposed to be utterly in thrall to certain personality types - you see it all the time that they believe certain people (usually men) can do no wrong and will defend anything those people do to the death as the cognitive dissonance of seeing what is actually happening is so distressing to them.

hoopyloopy2 · 21/02/2026 11:51

For me all of this has been a wake up call that we as (westernised) humans have done a good job of fooling ourselves for generations that our societal & moral structures make us decent and superior. But this wool is now falling from our eyes and we see corruption and exploitation to exert or gain power (sex and money) is everywhere and at the heart of so many of our institutions. It’s profoundly bleak to me. Yes, men have been undoubtedly the drivers of this rather than women, but I just wonder if that is because they have held more power.

Fiflaboeuf · 21/02/2026 11:52

I think part of this that people forget is about the Madonna / whore dichotomy that was internalised completely. I worked at Harrods while some of the abuse was happening but the word on the shop floor I was part of was ‘he has some women up there who suck him off’ - zero sense of them as victims, just a lumpen sense of some faceless women.
So one side of the coin was always perfect women who never abuse or get abused, and others who are slags or just unlucky. Now inwardly I know I felt ‘lucky’ about not being subject to it - and a lot of shame about other problematic sexual things that happened in my life - but the ‘fault’ or the luck was mine alone. Zero sense that the men were at fault primarily.
This two tier way of looking at women was so ingrained 20 years ago - grooming just wasn’t understood. And there was a sense of fatalism about what you might be subjected to.
So now we can see if men have a bevy of women ‘servicing’ them it is definitely dodgy and probably coercive.

ChrisMartinsKisskam · 21/02/2026 11:56

GM went to school with Cressida Dick head of the Met responsible for investigating Prince Andrew a few years ago

Dollymylove · 21/02/2026 12:01

I would imagine his money would be a big draw for many women

ApplebyArrows · 21/02/2026 12:06

I think with the right mindset you can actually portray yourself as doing the girls a favour. "Sex work is work", and so you're just helping someone get a job. "Maybe technically they're a year or two underage," you tell yourself, "but it's normal for girls that age to have sex." And so you recast the bad things you're doing as something actually positive.

HoskinsChoice · 21/02/2026 12:14

hoopyloopy2 · 21/02/2026 11:51

For me all of this has been a wake up call that we as (westernised) humans have done a good job of fooling ourselves for generations that our societal & moral structures make us decent and superior. But this wool is now falling from our eyes and we see corruption and exploitation to exert or gain power (sex and money) is everywhere and at the heart of so many of our institutions. It’s profoundly bleak to me. Yes, men have been undoubtedly the drivers of this rather than women, but I just wonder if that is because they have held more power.

Whilst it is bleak and there is an awful lot more to do, it is also wrong to think that westernised culture has not progressed dramatically. In huge swathes of this world, particularly Africa and Asia, women are used, raped and abused as a matter of course. It is just the norm for men to have full control and women are treated as second class citizens. It is embedded into their culture. We are way ahead of this. Most men and women in western cultures welcome equality which is why this has been headline news for years.

This is big but let's get it into context. Westernised culture is comparatively 'decent and superior'. By claiming it isn't belittles the every day abuse that women endure in other parts of the world. This is awful but we are still incredibly lucky to have been brought up in a westernised culture.

hoopyloopy2 · 21/02/2026 13:11

HoskinsChoice · 21/02/2026 12:14

Whilst it is bleak and there is an awful lot more to do, it is also wrong to think that westernised culture has not progressed dramatically. In huge swathes of this world, particularly Africa and Asia, women are used, raped and abused as a matter of course. It is just the norm for men to have full control and women are treated as second class citizens. It is embedded into their culture. We are way ahead of this. Most men and women in western cultures welcome equality which is why this has been headline news for years.

This is big but let's get it into context. Westernised culture is comparatively 'decent and superior'. By claiming it isn't belittles the every day abuse that women endure in other parts of the world. This is awful but we are still incredibly lucky to have been brought up in a westernised culture.

Edited

Yes true, there has been progression but somehow the pretence of moral superiority that goes on now by so many of the most powerful people in the western world is just as sickening it’s own way as the barefaced misogyny of the past/in other parts of the world. The hypocrisy, collusion and enablement are their own brand of bleak and terrifying. Not minimising the experiences of women in other times and places. I’m incredibly thankful that I’m not one of them but I certainly don’t celebrate where we are today.

mindutopia · 21/02/2026 13:23

I’m not. I have two female family members both married to convicted paedophiles. The mental gymnastics they are able to accomplish to convince themselves that their and their partners behaviour is perfectly normal is quite amazing. They can explain away everything. How DNA ended up where it did for entirely innocent reasons. Why it’s really not their partners’ faults that a young teen girl enticed them into the situations they ended up in. One even acts as a front so he can be around vulnerable children where it would be weird for a single man to be there alone, but not a ‘nice’ older couple. Some women are incredibly desperate. None of this is at all shocking to me. Unfortunately.

YourGreenCat · 21/02/2026 13:35

Why do you think women are a different species?

how on earth could women see children and young girls being abused and hurt and actively make that happen?? how could PEOPLE see that should be question. Who cares if they have a penis or a vagina, what difference does it make?

I am so sick of all these women who talk about sisterhood, or try to portray us as fragile innocent idiotic weak victims, when we are trying to prove equality. Being equally abusive is not exactly what we want from equality, but what stopped these women is the lack of opportunity, not a superiority.

and the question stands, how can people be so I don't know, pervert? I am not even sure of the word

But if we could stop pretending that men and women are 2 different species, because that does not help anyone. In the same token, men are as outraged and disgusted about the reports.

EsmaCannonball · 21/02/2026 13:35

As with the rape gangs scandal, there is a real class element to this. Middle and upper class men and women seeing working class women and girls as low calibre, disposable, and exploitable bodies with little intelligence or humanity to consider. Actually you can see that in their attitudes to surrogacy and prostituion in general.

YourGreenCat · 21/02/2026 13:37

hoopyloopy2 · 21/02/2026 11:51

For me all of this has been a wake up call that we as (westernised) humans have done a good job of fooling ourselves for generations that our societal & moral structures make us decent and superior. But this wool is now falling from our eyes and we see corruption and exploitation to exert or gain power (sex and money) is everywhere and at the heart of so many of our institutions. It’s profoundly bleak to me. Yes, men have been undoubtedly the drivers of this rather than women, but I just wonder if that is because they have held more power.

You really believe, or used to believe that Western people were "superior"? Seriously?

InterIgnis · 21/02/2026 14:02

Whereareallthegoodpeople · 21/02/2026 00:26

Yes exactly me too. I honestly don’t believe the majority have no morals and are evil, but don’t act upon it in case they’re caught and go to prison etc. If we were suddenly allowed to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted, would that make me become a murderer or abuser, definitely not

You’re assuming that ‘bad’ people think of themselves as bad people, twirling their mustaches villainously. Generally, people don’t do this. They don’t think they’re immoral, or that their victims don’t deserve it. They rarely think they’re anything other than justified in what they do.

‘Morality’ doesn’t prevent people from acting terribly, it can in fact encourage them to do so in the name of the so-called ‘greater good’.

Worried198423 · 21/02/2026 14:03

notacooldad · 20/02/2026 23:21

Do we think GM was a victim/brainwashed?
I cant speak for everyone else but I absolutely do not think she was brainwashed.

I think the same.
There are women who are like that and to say she's a victim just doesn't make sense to me.

InterIgnis · 21/02/2026 14:07

Notmenothere · 21/02/2026 05:15

Sorry to read this. I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to live through something like that.

It is what I’ve always thought. You’re not acting in a vacuum. In situations of war, it becomes about survival and people find themselves doing what would previously have been unthinkable. The ‘Eat or be eaten’ (or run!) scenario.

I think the Epstein situation is different, though. Lots of people were involved but many more people weren’t, so you could leave without walking into a war zone. I agree you’d have to be a particular type of person to get caught up in it - mercenary, avaricious, capable of compartmentalising people into those who matter and those who don’t to name but a few.

I do think it’s interesting that some of his enablers were very high up in the corporate world, like that lawyer working for Goldman Sachs. I’ve seen dreadful things done in workplaces and I do wonder if the skills needed to most ruthlessly climb the greasy pole are transferable here - sycophancy, not rocking the boat, closing ranks to protect an organisation, the ability to disassociate from negative outcomes, even where those impacted are vulnerable and blameless. I’m thinking of the post office scandal, for example (not suggesting anyone there was involved with Epstein). If I recall correctly, their lead counsel decamped to Australia and refused to attend the inquiry…

Edited

I was a Serb in Serbia, so I got off very, very lightly.

I don’t think the underlying factors are different. Both rely on a removal of ordinary restrictions, and both rely on environment providing opportunity to act in a way you wouldn’t have done in a different one.

Whereareallthegoodpeople · 21/02/2026 14:07

Welltheywouldsaythat · 21/02/2026 01:57

Have name changed
I don't think I'm a psychopath well I hope not but I might be, but people are weak and can be easily flattered & if you know what buttons to press you can have them eating out of your hand.
You make them feel special & so good about themselves by asking them for little favours & in return doing them bigger favours so they do you bigger favours.
They become your puppets & your dolls & yes you might like them too but it makes you feel special too to manipulate them & rather entertaining
Though it's rather boring too.

I try not to do it & if I do, I try to do it for the good of humanity as bizarrely I get more of a thrill about doing good as doing bad is too easy.

I am on the autistic spectrum but am I also a psychopath? A moral psychopath? But that's surely absurd?

This is interesting. Have you always been this way? Do you sit and think about ways to do this or does it come naturally? I don’t think I’m intelligent enough and probably too lazy, but also i’m not sure why I would want to do that, what do you think drives you?

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Whereareallthegoodpeople · 21/02/2026 14:11

HappyGalentines · 21/02/2026 03:05

I agree I do find the involvement of women more shocking and GM’s involvement (a posh English woman) apparently made it feel safe for girls like VG to get involved. GM could apparently‘sniff out’ vulnerable girls who’d been previously abused.

The justification for privileged women’s involvement (whether GM or Queen Elizabeth II in paying £m to hush up the abuse) comes from seeing the victims as ‘other’. GM described them as trash. The involvement of the victims who then went on to become JE’s enablers once they became’too old’ for JE’s tastes, I think comes from their being groomed and trapped in that awful world.

Did GM actually call the young girls ‘Trash?’ 😮

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Isthateveryonethen · 21/02/2026 14:12

Women can be just as evil as men. I will never understand why people immediately think victim when it’s a woman. I always need to hear both sides before I decide who is right, I won’t automatically assume a woman is a victim or innocent .

missmollygreen · 21/02/2026 14:13

Whereareallthegoodpeople · 20/02/2026 23:08

Do we think GM was a victim/brainwashed?

Why do we find it so hard to believe that women can be as cruel as men?
We are not helping anyone by removing women's responsibility from these matters. Always assuming that they must have been brainwashed or vulnerable.
These women wanted power and they used the girls to get it.

Whereareallthegoodpeople · 21/02/2026 14:13

Dahlagain · 21/02/2026 03:23

Aren't some named escorts, who procured women for him? Naomi Campbell, Donna Air etc? It was all about money and moving in these weird circles. I cant imagine any knew of the darker stuff?

@Whereareallthegoodpeople I am someone who always believed in the idea of a village/women supporting each other. But I know of two women, one who knowingly married a paedophile, and one who was secretly recorded being verbally abusive to a child. Both have very important jobs, seem very normal to anyone who meets them. Both still blame the victims. Made me think you can never really know people.

Was/is Donna A an escort? Had no idea

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whereisitnow · 21/02/2026 14:14

See, I blame the perpetrators, who are men.