Age of consent should be 13 "To stop the persecution of old men"

[nenevomito]

Story Here

A prominent barrister in reproductive rights has called for the age of consent to be lowered to 13.

Barbara Hewson told online magazine Spiked that the move was necessary in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal to end the "persecution of old men".

She also said that complainants should no longer receive anonymity.

Its hard to know what is worst about this story. The fact that lowering the age of consent should be seen as a solution to the abuse of young girls, or that its a woman who is saying it.

Have you read the article on the BBC.

the barrister is not putting forward a reasoned proposition as to why she thinks the age of consent should be lowered.

She is suggesting that the age of consent be lowered in order to protect men like Stuart Hall and Jimmy Saville from facing prosecution.

She is basically saying, well you can't expect dirty old men to keep their hands out of little girls knickers so let's legalise it.

Stuart Hall had an accusation of rape left on file as well FFS. No-one in their right mind would consider him persecuted.

Oh sorry that post was to namechangeguy.

namechange guy re. the last point of your post

"As for the point about whether a girl is likely to be flattered, give consent etc., at that point I get lost. It's another example of someone guessing at another individuals motives and actions. I can't debate that because I don't know, and frankly neither does anyone else."

Have you heard of grooming or coercion? There is a lot of information out there about these phenomenon.

"whether a girl is likely to be flattered, give consent etc., at that point I get lost"

May I suggest that you don't try to argue on subjects where you know so little that you are easily lost?

That woman clearly despises men almost as much as she hates women and children.

The thing is, men are not en masse clamouring for the right to rape 13 year old children and have it called sex. Child rapists are of course, so that they can rape without it being called rape, but normal men don't see the need to have a law which enables them to have sexual contact with children of 13 and 14, because normal men know that it is wrong to have sexual relationships with much younger, inexperienced vulnerable people, so why would they want a law to give them a legal right they know they have no moral right to? But she seems to think that it's only the law which stops most of them all grooming and sexually abusing kids and actually they all want to really and should be allowed to because it's not fair that they get "persecuted" (or as most people would call it, held accountable) for their actions when they break this "unfair" law.

I mean really, what is she on? She manages to insult every man in the country who doesn't want to have sexual access to kids by implying they're all like Stuart Hall and Jimmy Savile really. No rapist is ever going to employ her as a defence lawyer because she's going to be forever associated with rape apologia and she'll actually be a liability in a defence. I really don't think she's done her law career any good at all by publishing this piece.

I am not arguing (well, at least I wasn't up to this bit, right here). I think 13 is way, way too low. I think 16 is too low. I think the men who have been caught by Yewtree should feel the full weight of the law. Age is not an excuse for them, nor is the time elapsed since they did it.

All I picked up on where the point at which I thought people were moving away from the facts and projecting their own theories and motives.

I'd also take issue with a bit of the OP - Its hard to know what is worst about this story. ... or that its a woman who is saying it. Why should it be worse because a woman has said it? Are they not allowed controversial opinions, especially in areas of expertise? That bit actually seems rather sexist. She is a barrister - they all have their consciences removed upon qualification.

Fortunately she isn't in criminal practice.

I think it's worse when a woman says it because she will almost certainly have had something happen to her in terms of unwanted attention / contact etc of a sexual nature by a man or men. That's just how it is and OK on MN when you say that there will always be one who says she has never been flashed at or had obscenities shouted or groped or grabbed or worse or much worse.

So when a woman says it, who is almost certain to have been a victim of some kind of sexually motivated incident at some point in her life - and most probably when she was in scondary school up to mid-twenties - then it seems like a real kick in the teeth. When men say stupid stuff like this you can think, well they haven't been born and grown up a girl, they've probably never had that type of attention - and if they have it's not considered to be the "norm".

I hope that explanation makes some sense, that's how I feel about these things.

"the point at which I thought people were moving away from the facts and projecting their own theories and motives. "

Those weren't theories, as every woman who has ever been a girl knows.

We have all passed a good many years between childhood and womanhood, when our bodies were developed and we were attracting male attention despite still being a child in our heads. What I have wrote in that post was to inform you of the realities and there is not a single "theory" or "motive" there.

I get really antsy about men who project their own theories and motives onto the conversation of women while being totally unaware of doing so.

Beam, mote, eye.

I was appalled by these comments.
Comparison to more serious crimes is a crock of shit, it trivialises and marginalises what is actually a creepy unpleasant activity - exploiting and abusing children by men (or women) old enough to know better deserves to be held up to public shame and punishment.
The odd grope, kiss, comment is just the thin end of the wedge and should not be tolerated.

But also the odd grope, kiss, comment - again, this woman frames it in terms of how women respond to it - not in terms of the men who do it.

Why is she fighting for the right of men to have the odd grope, kiss, comment? Most men don't want the right to sexually harass their female colleagues. They recognise that it's wrong and they don't do it because they're not creeps, not because the law and their company policy tells them not to.

I don't know if you saw the thread running in Chat about it:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1751217-Leading-Human-Rights-Barrister-calls-for-Rape-Victims-right-to-annonymity-to-waived-age-of-consent-to-be-reduced-to-13-and-refers-to-NSPCC-NAPAC-as-part-of-witch-hunt-persecution-Am-stunned

in the news as well

Question time there is a male barrister on who has just said that if there is not a conviction for rape in the court then clearly no rape has occurred, he said that in context of someone saying the estimated amount of rapes in the UK or similar. So he thinks if they don't report, or they get no crimed, or there is not the evidence etc etc etc then the rape has not happened.

Is this sort of attitude a barrister thing, I wonder?

Am spitting.

I don;t know about a barrister thing, but it is so definitely a wanker thing.

Perhaps I live in a right-on ghetto but I don't know anyone who thinks along those lines these days. Everyone i know realises that the CPS progresses a worryingly low number of cases; everyone I know thinks this is a problem.

But ... perhaps I need to get out more.

I know lots of barristers. I've never heard any of them say anything so deeply stupid.