Huw Edwards and backlash defending grim behaviour

[ThirtyPercentRecycled]

I’ve scanned through and can’t see a thread similar to this, but happy to ask for this to be deleted if it’s already done to death.

After the announcement that the seedy male is HE, there seems to be a backlash defending him, and defending men’s rights to behave exactly how they want to.
I’m not sure I will ever feel comfortable with men paying for sexually explicit photos, and I definitely won’t ever accept what I’m being told now that “all men do it, as long as it’s private it doesn’t hurt anyone” (have come straight here from watching a Jonathan Pie video saying this - all men wank, what’s the problem).

Every time there’s a glimmer of hope that men will be held accountable for their actions, people go into overdrive to excuse their actions and focus blame elsewhere.

HE knew what he was doing. No one forced him.
I have 1 friend that feels the same way I do, but everyone else I know thinks this is a huge overreaction and focus on the parents (definitely being paid, money grabbing scum), the young person (a druggy, not a potential victim, deserves everything he/she gets) and the Sun (Sam Fox etc). HE is being largely treated as a victim here, and I can’t get my head round it.

If my child had a life threatening drug habit, funded by a celebrity, I’d probably do the same thing. The police couldn’t do anything. The BBC didn’t do anything. As a desperate parent what would you do?

Me too had the potential to be world changing, but apparently asking men to respect women/young people and not treat them as commodities and sexual objects was a step too far for many, including many women.

Opinions I’ve heard on revenge porn, usually with a female victim, tend to blame the woman for allowing herself to be filmed in the first place. Rape victims (unless male) are asked what they were wearing, were they drunk, they are compared to objects/possessions - if you leave your house open don’t be surprised when someone takes your stuff.

So is this where we are? A world by men and for men, where they can get their grubby rocks off however they want but are still seen as the victim when it comes out?

It’s honestly disgusting me, the lengths that people go to to defend these men, I’m horrified that people I respected are defending HE, and I can’t see any solution to it. It’s so depressing.

At the end of the day, there are a very large number of men who feel entitled to pay for images of younger people, I’d hazard a guess at mainly young women, to wank to.

There are a large number of people who will go to great lengths to defend them when their sleazy behaviour is discovered.

Why is anyone defending them? Why does that defence extend to vilifying the “object” of their wank fodder? It’s repulsive.

@ThirtyPercentRecycled There has been no denial at all.
In a case like this if his behaviour was exemplary then there would have been a statement declaring that.
Absence of that speaks volumes.

None of that is 'proof' of anything.

HE is answerable only to The Law, his employer and God

I repeat, the Police have said there is no case to answer.

His employer have not finished their enquiries.

His relationship with God is not for any of us to comment on.

He is being judged in the court of public opinion which he is not answerable to.

Completely agree OP. The fact that so many in his industry are defending his awful behaviour is disgusting. He knew exactly what he was doing, probably enjoyed the power and thrill. Women rarely behave in such a manner. So many men are ultimately selfish pigs and society needs to condemn more, not less.

HE is answerable only to The Law, his employer and God

And his wife. Doesn't she get an explanation? incidentally his employer is the BBC, principally funded by the licence payers. That's us.

@Bellasignora so maybe you could give me your opinion on men like Jonathon Pie defending men’s rights to pay for sexual images to wank over?

In many of these cases it involves trafficked women.

Are you ok with that?

He is being judged in the court of public opinion which he is not answerable to.

To a public who are largely viciously supportive of him - poor thing.

I do agree that there is a whole lot of normalising some very unpleasant behaviour going on.
I think one reason for sympathy may be that The Sun reported salacious information / allegations as being in the public interest. That’s a stretch. The first place both the BBC and The Sun should have gone is the police.

As to the fact that Victoria Derbyshire was already investigating allegations, again, why was whatever info she had, not passed to police and run up the chain of command at the BBC

No I'm not.

If HE is proved to have done what it is alleged he has done I will review my position.

At the moment there is no proof.

As far as I'm aware as long as the sex worker is 18 years old or above they can sell their images and videos to anyone else who is also 18 years old or above?

It's not illegal.

I repeat, the Police have said there is no case to answer

If your only bar for decent human behaviour is 'it isn't illegal' then you seriously need to raise your standards.

As for the police - that would be the Met, would it? the ones who didn't know or ignored that they were employing a rapist? the ones who let one of the murderers of Stephen Lawrence go free because of their incompetence and unwillingness to investigate? I wouldn't trust them to find anything if they tripped over it in broad daylight.

What HE allegedly did was awful. But it was not illegal. I don't think people are defending what he did, I am not. But how the Sun went about things and the absolute disgusting behaviour of the mob on social media-HE did not deserve that.

As pp said, for me the issue is the fact that almost all men use porn, lots of women too. How have we got to the point where it is so acceptable to exploit young people in this way and for young people to think this is an OK way to make a living?

This says it far better than I ever could.

Again, that's an allegation.

Is he not allowed a private life?

You may not personally agree with porn, for example, but it's not criminal, nor is homosexuality or adultery.

As to the fact that Victoria Derbyshire was already investigating allegations, again, why was whatever info she had, not passed to police and run up the chain of command at the BBC

The BBC has form for protecting their own and sweeping it under the carpet.

They had the chance to deal with this in May. They chose not to. HE could either have been quietly investigated and retired off, or quietly investigated, found to be innocent, and none of this would have happened.
If HE has indeed behaved in this way he is responsible - as the relationship board frequently points out, a mental illness cannot excuse poor behaviour. The actions of the BBC have made it all worse.

You see homosexuality as immoral as porn or adultery? Wow.

To be honest I have not seen anyone defending his behaviour. I have seen people pointing out that The Sun is a despicable rag with its own questionable morals.

Personally I cannot excuse Huw's behaviour and nor can he. There needs to be a highlight of poor behaviour

He does not deserve hounding to the point of illness though and his family should be left alone.

Yes, this sums it up for me.

Yes, me too.

The BBC has form for protecting their own and sweeping it under the carpet.

They had the chance to deal with this in May. They chose not to. HE could either have been quietly investigated and retired off, or quietly investigated, found to be innocent, and none of this would have happened.

I agree that the BBC has been remiss in the way that has been handled and are no longer 'fit for purpose'.

So take up your issues with the BBC as I have, via their complaints procedure, write to your MP and ask them to stop the BBC being supported by Joe Public.

If enough people did that it might make a difference.

I didn't say that at all. You're massively reaching.

I'll ask again: is he not allowed a private life?

If you think porn and Only Fans should be illegal then fight on that issue. But why single out one man?

How are you so sure it's images of women he's supposed to have been buying? If it's not does that change your view?

Totally agree with you!

People make all sorts of excuses when men make mistakes, and that is male privilege in action. I believe women are held to much higher standards of behaviour than men are.

Agree completely

I think the problem is the young person in question has come out to say their parents were completely wrong. So we don’t really know if any of it was true. We don’t know if HE actually paid for photos, we don’t know if the young person was under 18, we don’t know if the young person did have a drug habit, we don’t know if HE’s wife knew HE was sleeping with / having relationships with other people (I’ve met too many people with open relationships in real life to assume that they’d consider shagging someone else cheating). We don’t even know if the photo of his arse on the internet is his real arse.

We do know that the sun was told that this was not true by the young person involved, they knew the older person involved had a history of mental health problems, yet they ran with it anyway.

Totally agree. What we should be seeing is this episode having prompted discussion about how normalised this sort of exploitation has become but apparently because it’s legal we’re supposed to feel sorry for these privileged men who care only for themselves and their own dicks.

Men watching extreme porn, buying onlyfans content, casually exchanging explicit images of women in chat groups, this behaviour has become so normalised that what HE has (allegedly) done doesn't seem so bad.